The front lines of Canada’s culture war have moved to, of all places, Royal Military College.

Its senate — comprising the chancellor (Defence Minister Peter MacKay), the commandant, the principal, the deans of the faculties, the director of cadets, the academic director of RMC St-Jean, Quebec, and a faculty representative — has, as a body, if not unanimously, proclaimed to Canada’s future military elite that the college is A-OK with gratuitous violence, calling people pukes, trashing multiculturalism and left-wing pinkos who ride bicycles, describing men with long hair as girls, speaking derogatively of francophone Canadians, labelling someone with a non-anglo name as “some kind of dog food” and supporting the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

CBC hockey commentator Don Cherry is celebrated for those views and RMC’s senate voted to grant Mr. Cherry an honorary doctorate at its November convocation, citing (in the words of principal Joel Sokolsky) “his work on behalf of the Forces, his charity work [and] his standing in promoting athletics in Canada.” All of which has created a fuss and an interesting outcome. Continue reading →